Side by Side: Walking with Others in Wisdom and Love

by Edward T. Welch

The basic idea is that those who help best are the ones who both need help and give help. A healthy community is dependent on all of us being both.

We need help for our souls, especially when we are going through hardships. Help can be as simple as connecting with someone who understands or with someone who genuinely says, “I’m so sorry.” We were not designed to go through hard things alone.

Anything that reminds us that we are dependent on God and other people is a good thing. Otherwise, we trick ourselves into thinking that we are self-sufficient, and arrogance is sure to follow. We need help, and God has given us his Spirit and each other to provide it.

There is no such thing as an unnecessary person.

We were meant to live that way. We were meant to walk side by side, an interdependent body of weak people. God is pleased to grow and change us through the help of people who have been re-created in Christ and empowered by the Spirit. That is how life in the church works.

Friends are the best helpers. They come prepackaged with compassion and love. All they need is wisdom, and that is available to everyone.

We ordinary people have been given power and wisdom through the Holy Spirit and are called to love others (John 13:34). From this beginning, we are compelled to move toward others rather than stay away.

writing for people like me, who are willing to move toward other struggling people but are not confident that they can

say or do anything very helpful. If you feel quite weak and ordinary—if you feel like a mess but have the Spirit—you have the right credentials. You are one of ...

Your neediness qualifies you to help others. Your neediness, offered well to someone else, can even be one of the great gifts you give to your church. You will inspire others to ask for help.

We spend too much time concealing our neediness. We need to stop hiding. Being

needy is our basic condition. There is no shame in it—it’s just the way it is. Understanding this, accepting it, and practicing it will make you a better helper.

Why do we bother identifying such hardships? We do it because human beings do best when they take their hardships public to God and at least one other person.

When happy, we possess something we love; when anxious, something we love is at risk; when despondent, something we love

has been lost; when angry, something we love is being stolen or kept from us.

look at guilt and shame. We might not say that they reveal what we love, but they certainly reveal what is dear to us. When we feel shame, we feel as though someone has taken off our human covering and left us naked. It separates us from relationships, and relationships are dear to us. When guilty, we feel like our relationship with ...

We could sum up our emotions this way: they usually proceed from our hearts, are given shape by our bodies, reflect the quality of our relationships, bear the etchings of both the goodness and the meaninglessness of work, provide a peek into how we fare in spiritual battle, and identify what we really believe about God.

Occasionally, since emotions are given shape by our bodies, emotions can be unpredictable assaults that come from disordered bodies and unruly brains.

Depression, for example, might say that something loved is now lost, life has lost meaning and purpose, or something desired will never be possessed. But depression could also say, “Something is not right in my body or brain.”

strong emotions are a time to ask, “What is my heart really saying? What do I live...

Paul understands that the deepest need of our hearts is God—to know him accurately and follow him. This means that if we want to both be helped and truly help others, we will always be aiming for this. And since Jesus himself is our fullest picture of God, we will always be aiming for him. Somehow, as we grow in our knowledge and worship of Jesus, he encourages the good, rehabilitates the bad, and brings peace to a troubled heart. He is the source of all wisdom, love, and hope. Whether or not we say the actual name of Jesus to a needy friend, we always aim for Jesus.

Our task is to hear God’s voice, believe his words, and follow Jesus even when life is hard.

Even those who seem strong in their faith can be left wobbly by sufferings that threaten the things they love most.

internal conversation and essentially said this: “If you think that news of my death will change my confidence in God’s love toward me, it won’t. His Son gave his life for me. Why would I think he would love me less now? He loved me yesterday when everything seemed to be going well. Nothing has changed—he loves me today too.”

Honest, open cries spoken to the Father—that was his way of responding to hardships. He begins with questions. Why is this happening? How could this be? Why are you so far away? Why don’t you answer? Jesus’s words seem shocking in their desperation, yet he authorizes the use of these very words in our own troubles. What is especially important, however, is that he is not grumbling or challenging God with his words. No, he is crying out and directing his words to the promise-making and promise-keeping God, who really does hear. Doing this is much harder than it looks, given our tendency to turn inward in our pain.

So we keep talking to God, not grumbling about him.

Discussion and Response 1) Take a recent difficult event and identify what kind of psalm you are writing. 2) Paraphrase Psalm 22 and let the psalmist guide you in prayer.

Suffering feels like our biggest problem and avoiding it like our greatest need—but we know that there is something more. Sin is actually our biggest problem, and rescue from it is our greatest need.

Only people who know they have burdens can be delivered from them. Sadly, the method for that deliverance—confession—has been tarnished. We are slow to talk about sin for fear that it could threaten our already fragile egos or label us as judgmental and narrow-minded. But instead of thinking about sin talk as an endless stream of negativity and browbeating, think of it as something good. It is, after all, a part of God’s rescue package that is called the “Good News.” So though it’s true that sin itself is not good, to see our sin is good. Whereas sin leads down a burden-filled path, Jesus says, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Confession is essential to that life.

Seeing the weight of our sin brings humility. An awareness of sin brings humility—not shame or humiliation—and humility is a brilliant reflection of Jesus to others.

Seeing the weight of our sin is the beginning of power and confidence. When we see our sin, we are seeing the Spirit’s conviction, which means we are witnessing spiritual power, but that power feels different from what we expect. It’s not like worldly power. Spiritual power feels like a struggle, or weakness, or neediness, or desperation. It is simply, “I need Jesus,” which is the most powerful thing we can say. It

Just imagine: no more hiding from God, no more defensiveness in our relationships. When we have wronged others, we simply ask their forgiveness. Our security in Jesus gives us the opportunity to think less often about what others think of us. It gives us freedom to make mistakes and even fail. No longer do we have to build and protect our own kingdom.

Though we don’t always realize it, all sin is personal—it is against God. It is against God and his character. Our sin says, “I want my independence”; “I don’t want to be associated with you”; “I want more than you can offer me”; “I know what is best for me”; or—and this is scary—“I hate you” (James 4:4).

Confession is for everyone, every day. We all need to confess, and we need to do it every day (Matt. 6:12). No one is so bad that he or she is beyond forgiveness. Scripture includes murderers (Moses) and schemers (Jacob) and adulterers (David) among God’s people so that no one can say that they are beyond the reach of God’s mercy. On the other hand, no one is so good that only one or two confessions a year will do.

So even though sin weighs a lot, we aim to see it and enjoy the benefits of confession. When we lay it down, we are thankful and find joy in confession, knowing we are already forgiven because Jesus has become our sacrifice, once and for all (Heb. 10:11–14). Our greatest need has been met. Discussion and Response

Our inclination is to live self-sufficient lives. When there is trouble, we first try to figure it out, then we worry, as if there is no one who cares or hears. Or maybe we give God the cold shoulder because he didn’t give us what we had hoped for, or we hide from him because we cherish sins in our private world. There are probably dozens of reasons why we resist calling out to the Lord. I know I resist asking for help. I prefer to give help and to keep my neediness to myself. This means that I am slow to ask both other people and God for help. That is deranged, indeed. But I am not alone.

Wailing on our beds is easy and natural. But crying out to the Lord is spiritual—it is a gift from the Spirit—but it is also the most human thing we can do. Real life begins with, “Help, I need Jesus.” Listen to how the psalms cry out to God: Incline your ear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. (Ps. 86:1) O LORD, God of my salvation; I cry out day and night before you. Let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry! (Ps. 88:1–2)6 We have no reason to resist. Humility before our Father, rescuer, and comforter; openness and freedom to speak what is on our hearts to Jesus, who calls us his friend—these are spiritual fundamentals.

Forgiveness of sins is essential to human satisfaction. The Hebrew word for that satisfaction is shalom, which means that all is right before God, and when all is right before God, we experience an abiding peace that is unruffled by the disappointments of life. Only confession and forgiveness bring shalom. We have a need to confess sin. When we confess sin and couple our confession with an accurate knowledge of God’s mercy, we can expect nothing short of a growing peace.

The hardships of life provoke our prayer for help. Confession and forgiveness assure us that God will, indeed, help. Then our hearts are deflected from our circumstances and toward the Lord himself.

This knowledge of Jesus is especially important during suffering. At those times Satan raises questions about the character of God and suggests, at least, that God stands opposed to our best interests. If our knowledge of God is weak, we are left with a god who is a strange composite of truth, satanic lies, our projected desires and expectations, our experiences with our parents, and the accumulation of life’s hurts. This is not the God of the cross who loved us while we were enemies, and this composite will not sustain us. In other words, all suffering raises a relational question: Does God love me? So we pray to know him accurately and better (Eph. 1:17; 3:17–19). As we do, we aim for rest, because resting in him is a way to honor him. For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken. (Ps. 62:1–2)

Prayer for an out-of-control schedule can include (1) confession of wanting to please people (people pleasers are always saying yes); (2) confession of an obsession with video games; (3) faith to take a weekly Sabbath; or (4) grace to focus on what is in front of us as we trust God for the things yet to do.

We move from things seen to things unseen, circumstances to spiritual realities.

Every cry of our hearts can be further shaped by Scripture. We cry out, God reveals more of his heart to us, we learn of him and speak more, he reveals himself more, we respond in thanks, and on and on. We need this communication, and we look forward to praying this way with others.

Given the relentless difficulties of life, the competing voices ready to interpret those difficulties, and those sin weights that we might not even see, we pray, and then we ask others to pray too. We need to do this, because if we jump right in to helping others without revealing our own neediness, we put humility at risk. It only takes a few seconds to recognize a slick consultant who merely dispenses answers in contrast to one who is needy before God, has walked a similar path of transparency, and now sits humbly with us, side by side.

If we desire to be perceived as competent and in control, we will not ask for prayer. If we know that humans, by nature, are spiritually needy, and God’s plan is that we turn both to him and to other people for help, we will ask for prayer.

How often? We want to ask more than we do now. How to ask? We want to ask for prayer about both circumstances and matters of the heart that sit below the surface, for things seen and things unseen. We take the skills we have learned in personal prayer and ask others to pray with us. First, we put our burdens into words. Second, we attach words of Scripture that capture both our real needs and God’s purposes and promises.

First, the burden: “I have been so tired. I feel like I am always a few steps behind on everything.” Second, we attach Scripture: “Would you pray that I would rest in Jesus?” The Scripture that shapes this prayer is from Matthew 11:28–30: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

And we aim our thankfulness at spiritual matters—what is permanent and certain, from the Spirit, rather than temporary. Spiritual means that we peer through the things seen so we can see the things unseen. It includes forgiveness of sins along with all the other benefits and fulfilled promises we have in Jesus and through his death and resurrection. Notice why spiritual matters deserve priority in our thanks. We should be thankful for physical health or for a job following a season of unemployment, but if our thankfulness is grounded on only those things we can see with our eyes, which do not have longevity, we will, someday, have no reason to be thankful, because someday we will be unhealthy, and suddenly we can turn from thanks to bitterness.

when you are stuck in hardships or sins, you keep enlarging the circle of those who know until you are no longer stuck.

Our friends stopped, as if to put all other conversations aside, and considered my fears with me for the next half hour. Then they prayed for me. Why was that so helpful? Good helpers, such as these friends: are present, which is a good thing when fears arise; listen, really listen; draw you out; avoid being impersonal teachers; never minimize, are never trite; remember. Those are qualities of Jesus himself, and they are some of the skills we will consider up ahead.